Sunday, 4 February 2007

The Politics of Fear

I am writing with Grover playing in the background. Needed some calming tunes after watching a Fox News Special (“Radical Islam: Terror In Its Own Words”) earlier. The right wing blogs and sites had been salivating all last week as they waited in anticipation for the programme to air last night and again today. As I expected (it is Fox after all), a load of sensationalist diatribe and propaganda aimed at demonising the “other”, keeping the populace in a constant state of fear and justifying foreign policy. I would write a long article dissecting and destroying each argument in the programme but I don’t think my employers would be very happy. Diplomatic life is very restrictive when it comes to voicing personal opinions on issues like this.

Food has always been an interest of mine, whether it’s eating, cooking or talking about it and while I definitely will not be going back to my days of gluttony, my obsession with food will always be ever present. I like watching cooking shows and have spent lots of my time home watching a number of them. Besides having to suffer as chefs prepare mouth watering dishes, I have been picking up many useful tips. For example, using the twigs of rosemary with the leaves still attached at the top as a skewer when grilling fish. This imparts the flavours right into the pieces of fish.

I came across this December feature on the BBC website. It is an interview of a Barbadian called Laurie Daniels, one of the thousands of West Indians recruited in the 1950s by the British to work on their buses and trains. It’s presented as an audio slideshow. Check it out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6164665.stm

While you are doing that, also check this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6310685.stm It’s an audio slideshow about the Festival in the Desert which is held every year in Essakane, Mali. I actually saw the link to the interview of the Bajan transport worker while I was watching the feature on the Desert Festival.